«But that I be not tedious»: women's role, representation, and lack of relevance in of plymouth plantation by William Bradford

Resumen

«But that I be not tedious» is the excuse William Bradford uses to explain his omission of women and their perspective on the Pilgrims’ now-mythical journey from the Netherlands to the New World, as well as their thoughts and sufferings and the problems the journey implied. In this essay I will analyze how in Of Plymouth Plantation Bradford deliberately chooses for most of his journal to minimize or simply ignore women’s participation in the creation of the colony of Plymouth and the derogatory and negative ways in which he portrays women in the very few instances when women appear in his narrative. That way, I will show that women’s representation is an exception and, when they appear, more often than not, it is just in order to illustrate the evils of Eve’s successors.